PRESUPPOSITION

PRESUPPOSITION

• We look at presupposition, another kind of inference which is very

closely linked to the ‘working’ of the utterance.

• In the USA, an accused mugger rather foolishly chose to defend

himself at the trial. The following is one of the questions he put to

his victim:

Did you get a good look at my face when I took your purse?

Truth-value

• This goes some way to explaining why he was sentenced to 10 years in

prison, but it also highlights another type of inference that we make when

interpreting utterances.

• In the previous unit we experimented with assigning ‘true’ or ‘false’ to

sentences.

• For some sentences, like My mother is a woman, we could assign a

TRUTH-VALUE based on what was happening in the language.

• For others, like My mother is a doctor, we could still assign a truth-value,

but it had to be based on what was happening in the world.

EXERCISE 3.1

• Decide if it is possible to assign either ‘true’ or false’ to each of the following sentences. (Remember, ‘true’ and ‘false’ are not quite the same as ‘yes’ and ‘no’.) Are there any sentences where this was not quite possible regardless of how much knowledge you had about the people, places and events involved or the meaning of English words?

(a) Abraham Lincoln is the current president of the USA.

(b) The Eiffel Tower is in Paris.

(c) A car is an automobile.

(d) Have a cookie.

(e) Be careful of the crumbs.

(f) Where was Abraham Lincoln born?

(g) How much did the car cost?

• Comment: You could answer ‘false’ to (a) and ‘true’ to (b) based on your

knowledge about the world. You could automatically answer ‘true’ to (c)

based on your knowledge of what car and automobile mean. These three

sentences have a particular kind of grammatical structure. They are

DECLARATIVE SENTENCES. Declarative sentences typically function

as ‘statements’.

• Declarative sentences

EXERCISE 3.1

Imperative sentences

• Problems in assigning ‘true’ or ‘false’ occur in sentences (d) to (g) These

sentences do not have a declarative structure. Sentences (d) and (e) are

IMPERATIVE SENTENCES. In imperative sentences, which typically

function as ‘commands’, there is no subject present although it is

‘understood’ as you.

Interrogative sentences

Wh-words

• Sentences (f) and (g) are INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES. Interrogative

sentences typically function as ‘questions’. Some interrogatives begin with

words like who, what, when ,where, why, how, etc. Since the majority of

these words begin with wh-, they are all usually called WH-WORDS.

• Only declarative sentences can be ‘true’ or ‘false’. Does this mean what we

cannot draw some very strong inferences from utterances based on

imperative and interrogative sentences?

EXERCISE 3.2

• For each of the following utterances decide whether the sentence being

uttered is declarative, imperative or interrogative and whether the

accompanying inference seems valid.

(a) Where has Faye looked for the keys? ‘Faye has looked for the keys.’

(b) Did you buy this awful wine? ‘This wine is awful.’

(c) Don’t sit on Annie’s sofa. ‘Annie has a sofa.’

(d) Stop being lazy. ‘You are being lazy.’

(e) Lucy knows that George is a crook. ‘George is a crook’.

EXERCISE 3.2

• Comment: Presuppositions These inferences all seem quite obvious ones to

make. They look suspiciously like entailments, yet only the sentence

uttered in (e) is declarative.

• Sentences (a) and (b) are interrogatives, and sentences (c) and (d) are

imperatives. These sorts of inferences are sometimes called

PRESUPPOSITIONS.

• Since not all utterances consist of full declarative sentences, presupposition

can be a useful concept when analysing speaker meaning. However, it has

proved very difficult for authors in the area to agree on a definition for it.

This definition problem is partly a reflection of the fuzzy boundary

between pragmatics and semantics.

EXERCISE 3.2

• Some definitions of presupposition are very broad and speaker oriented:

anything the speaker assumes to be true before making the utterance.

• Others are much more narrow and sentence oriented: a necessary

precondition for the sentence to be true. In these units we will be treating

presuppositions as inferences about what is assumed to be true in the

utterance rather than directly asserted to be true:

EXERCISE 3.2

• Faye has looked for the keys directly asserts ‘Faye has looked for the keys’

• Where has Faye looked for the keys? presupposes ‘Faye has looked for the

keys’

• Annie has a sofa directly asserts ‘Annie has a sofa’

• Don’t sit on Annie’s sofa presupposes ‘Annie has a sofa’

EXERCISE 3.2

• Presuppositions are inferences that are very closely linked to the words and

grammatical structures actually used in the utterance, but they come from

our knowledge about the way language users conventionally interpret these

words and structures. Because of this, presuppositions can be quite ‘sneaky’

as the next exercise will demonstrate.

EXERCISE 3.3

• In Exercise 3.2 change has to hasn’t in (a); did to didn’t in (b); do to don’t

in (c); stop to don’t stop in (d); and knows to doesn’t know in (e). Do the

inferences still hold?

• Comment: (Negation) You will have found that each of these inferences, or

presuppositions, remains constant under NEGATION of the main sentence.

(Unfortunately for our mugger at the beginning of the unit, the inference

that he took the purse would still hold whether or not his victim said she

got a good look at his face.) This is sometimes used as a ‘test’ for a

presupposition, and it highlights how a presupposition can take on the

appearance of ‘established truth’. In the next three exercises, we will look

in a bit more detail at some of the kinds of words and structures that seem

to ‘trigger’ presuppositions.

EXERCISE 3.4

• Each of the following utterances mentions chocolate cake. Decide which

ones contain the presupposition that at the time the utterance was made

‘There was a chocolate cake’. What do those utterances have in common?

1(a) Mike might find the chocolate cake in the kitchen.

1(b) Mike might find a chocolate cake in the kitchen.

2(a) Is Mike giving Annie that chocolate cake?

2(b) Is Mike giving Annie a chocolate cake?

3(a) Did Mike hide a chocolate cake?

3(b) Did Mike hide Annie’s chocolate cake?

EXERCISE 3.4

• Comment (Possessives Definite noun phrase/Existential presupposition)

The (a) utterance in each pair leads us to presuppose that the chocolate cake

being mentioned actually existed. What we notice is that in each of those

utterances the noun cake is part of a larger noun phrase. The words the,

that, this, these, those, and POSSESSIVES like Annie’s, my, your, etc.

make it a DEFINITE NOUN PHRASE and trigger this very basic kind of

presupposition. Notice that possessives lead to a particularly strong

presupposition about the existence of the chocolate cake, and in addition

lead to the presupposition that ‘Annie has a chocolate cake’. This basic

type of presupposition is sometimes called an EXISTENTIAL

PRESUPPOSITION. Look at how existential presupposition could work if

I wanted to sell you some hair lotion:

You’ll want DomeBeGone, my revolutionary cure for baldness.

EXERCISE 3.4

• Here, I am directly asserting that ‘You will want it’ but inside the definite noun phrase my revolutionary cure for baldness lurk several quite dubious propositions which are simply assumed to be true:

‘There is a cure for baldness.’

‘The cure is revolutionary.’

‘I have this cure.’

• You can probably see that presupposition has a great deal of importance in persuasive language, particularly in the courtroom and in advertising. Advertisers are not allowed to directly assert claims about their products or their competitors’ for which they have no evidence. However, they can generally get away with making indirect assertions via presupposition. In the courtroom, where the stakes are much higher than in advertising, lawyers examining witnesses are often not allowed to make an indirect assertion via presupposition, unless it has been established by previous evidence.

EXERCISE 3.5

• For each of the following utterances, decide which ones contain the

presupposition that ‘Mike smashed the television’. In other words, which

ones indicate that the speaker has assumed that this proposition is true but

has not directly asserted it. What do those utterances have in common?

(a) Did Mike smash the television?

(b) When did Mike smash the television?

(c) I was eating popcorn when Mike smashed the television.

(d) Why did Mike smash the television?

(e) I don’t understand why Mike smashed the television.

(f) I wonder if Mike smashed the television.

(g) I wonder how Mike smashed the television.

EXERCISE 3.5

• Comment (Subordinate clause) Here (b), (c), (d), (e), and (g) seem to

presuppose that Mike smashed the television, while (a) and (f) leave it as an

‘open question’. Whwords like when, why, how, etc. can trigger

suppositions both when they are used to ask a question as in (b) and (d) and

when they introduce a SUBORDINATE CLAUSE as in (c), (e), and (g):

when/why/ how Mike smashed the television.

EXERCISE 3.6

• In this exercise we look at some other kinds of words and constructions that

can lead to presuppositions. In each case write out a presupposition

contained in the utterance and decide what has triggered it.

(a) Steve regrets buying a dog.

(b) Meridyth pretends she’s a rock star.

(c) Ed should stop eating raw oysters.

EXERCISE 3.6

• Mine were: (a) ‘Steve bought a dog’, (b) ‘Meridyth is not a rock star’, (c)

‘Ed eats raw oysters’. Interestingly, when hearers query presuppositions,

they often explicitly query the wording that leads to them as well:

Steve could hardly regret it since he didn’t buy the dog after all.

Pretend? I thought Meridyth WAS a rock star.

What do you mean ‘stop’? Ed’s never eaten a raw oyster in his life!

EXERCISE 3.6

• The use of regret in (a) triggers the presupposition that what follows is

‘fact’. Other verbs that can behave like this are know, realize, discover and

find out as well as constructions like I’m aware that… and It’s strange

that… On the other hand, the use of pretend in (b) triggers the

presupposition that what follows is ‘fiction’. Other verbs that can behave

like this are imagine and dream and constructions like If I were…as in If I

were the Prime Minister, I’d ban presuppositions. The use of stop in (c)

triggers the presupposition that the action was going on before. Other verbs

that can behave like this are continue and keep. On the other hand, start and

begin can presuppose that the action was not going on before.

EXERCISE 3.6

• In this unit we have been looking at utterances in isolation, as if we had just

passed by an open door and overheard a stranger talking. Presuppositions

seem to be inferences that can be made with very little knowledge of the

context. In the next unit we will start looking at inferences that require

considerably more contextual knowledge and possibly more work for the

hearer as well.

SUMMARY

• We have described presuppositions as inferences about what is assumed in

an utterance rather than directly asserted.

• Presuppositions are closely linked to the words and grammatical structures

that are actually used in the utterance and our knowledge about the way

language users conventionally interpret them.

• Presuppositions can be drawn even when there is little or no surrounding

context.